..But while I'm at it, I hate when an individual, or thing, is referred to in a plural-ish (yes, I went to university) way. Or, what scientists call the 'Why Not Take All Of Me Syndrome'.You probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'll give an example--
'When thinking about those who have made the biggest impact to modern civilization as we know it; you have your Thomas Edison's, your Albert Einstein's. Your Ben McLaughlin's. Your Abe Lincoln's.'(1)
Thanks for the props, modern commentators, but I am not Legion.
(1)Journal Of Really True Facts, Second Edition, 2006.
18 comments:
You know what I hate?
Incorrect use of apostrophes* for pluralisation.
*We used to pronounce this as "apis-trohf" when we were at high school - it annoyed English teachers greatly
Okay, well that is fair critisism. This is a big weakness of mine, sort of like Kryptonite to Superman.
I just don't get them. Innitially I didn't have apostrphes in the names in this post, but spellcheck said I ought to put them in. So I did.
Can you give me some easy guidelines I can remember?
And I did read your link, but I got blinded by the angry flower
It took me a while to get the hang of the apostrophes.
Basically it comes down to these few rules:
1 - If you are pluralising something, NO APOSTROPHE. NOT EVER. Not even for an initialism or acronym.
E.g. dogs, cats, mice, VCRs, ATMs.
2 - If you are joining multiple words together and removing a letter or two, put an apostrophe in where you removed the letters.
E.g. it is => it's, there is => there's, Ben is awesome => Ben's awesome
3 - Use an apostrophe if you are talking about someone or something's possession. But only if you are referring to them directly.
E.g Ben's pen, his pen, her pen, your pen, its pen
3a - If you are assigning possession to someone with an "s" at the end of their name, just use an apostrophe and no second "s"
E.g. Jesus' dinner
============
That's it.
The only tricky bit is the difference between it's and its. And the easy way to get this right is to say the words in full while writing, so you you say "It is cool", while you write "It's cool".
This version of the comic might be a bit easier to read.
You can let Strongbad sing you to grammar victory with this little soundbite from SB email number 89...
linkage, Nath?
If a thing or feeling "belongs" to something else, then an 's is appropriate - John's soccer ball, Jenny's feelings were hurt, the dog's breakfast. Called using an apostrophe in the "possessive" form I think.
If the owner is plural and ends in an "s" then you don't need a second "s" - A players' dressing room belongs to ALL players, where a player's room belongs to just one.
I've heard mixed messages on a singular owner that ends in an "s" - I've seen both Jesus's and Jesus' in print. My wife (a secondary English teacher by training) prefers the former. Maybe some of our communications people can help us out with this one.
One little trap is if you use the pronoun "its" as a possessive, it needs no apostrophe, unfortunately for a new bridge in Brisbane which has set in stone "Although many changes have occurred along the river, it's spiritual significance endures". (credit Phil Campbell for the pick up).
Which leads into the second use as an indicator of a "contraction". It is - it's, Should have - should've, can not - can't.
Anything I've missed?
Rodeo and Mark, I appreciate your explanations. At the same time though, that is all extremely confusing. Just a simple word like it's needs ten paragraphs to explain all the variations. No wonder I get it all wrong.
My big issue is this. If I'm writing 'John's cat', that seems right to me, but then I second guess myself and think, 'but that means John is cat!' so I change it to Johns' cat.
And then when someones' (someone's??) name ends in an 's', then I'm twice as mixed up.
OK - trying to simplify further:
You only ever use an apostrophe in 2 situations: when a person owns something (Ben's pen), or when you are removing letters (I can't do it).
That's it.
If it hasn't had letters removed, and it isn't a person, no apostrophe.
John's cat.
Someone's name.
You aren't pluralising, and they are both people. Apostrophe and s on the end.
Jesus' hair.
Not pluralising, a person: Apostrophe on the end. S is optional (because there's already one there).
Ok, that makes sense. One last thing-
So if I say John Smith's house, what if I'm saying 'at the Smiths house'?
Is it Smiths'?
Sorry to be annoying.
You aren't being annoying :)
John Smith's house.
The Smiths' house.
You are pluralising Smith, so you put an 's' on the end. Then you are using the possessive, so you put an apostrophe. Because the 's' is already there, you don't have to put another one (but you can if you like - Smiths's looks a little odd though).
Smiths are people, and you are talking about their house so you use the apostrophe.
Righto. Thanks!
I don't know what happened to my link.
I'll try again...
Go here...
Blogger hates me. Stay tuned for a post on my blog...
Nevermind, thanks for trying. I think I remember it actually..
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